Everybody is afraid. So what?

Ten weeks after the first day of the second new year

Of course fear should be the subject of one of these posts. It was already, last June, but Author wants to add some things. Add some, and emphasize some. It’s an important subject, after all. Fear has a too decisive place in our lives to ignore. It has the ability to stop your actions, stand in the way of your dreams, lure you into losing your way, steering you to a path you never meant to take just because you don’t dare take the one you were meant for. You should be aware of fear, because this will make it easier for you to move ahead despite it. Not fight it, not conquer it—the first is a waste of time, the second near impossible, and either way it will just be replaced by a new one—just note what its effect on you is and take the next step on your chosen way despite it.

Even if you’ve already decided to be a writer, and even if you’ve already assimilated the fact that you are, in fact, starting a business, a startup, you might still be unable to make any progress, might still be frozen with fear. That’s not surprising. We spend our entire lives being afraid. And still, we don’t spend them huddled in some dark corner, too frozen to move. We do, we experience, we progress. In that sense, writing, or embarking on any new startup for that matter, is no different than other challenges we face in our lives, other experiences that are accompanied by fear, other things we fear and still do. We get through the first day of school, speak to a new potential friend, leave home to go to college, embark on a new relationship, start a new job. These and pretty much everything else we do have fear well latched onto them. But you do them anyway. So you can do this, too. You can move forward with your writing despite your fears.

Some of the fears you can have? Let’s see. The fear of not being a good enough writer to write good books. The fear of not being able to finish even your first book. The fear of not having any more ideas after your first one. The fear of putting a book out there that won’t sell no matter what you do. The fear of meeting unfavorable reaction to your writing. The fear of having to face the people who believed in you if you fail. The fear of having to deal with disappointment. Fears are certainly abundant, and they have a way of praying on you in those dark, silent hours in the middle of the night, don’t they? Keeping you wide awake, heart beating hard, wondering if you’ve made a mistake by taking the path you have. But that’s the point, isn’t it? You have taken that path. You’ve already made the decision, and there was a reason you did. You knew then, and you know now, that that’s the path you need to walk. That’s your way to go.

If you sit and do nothing but think about fear, you’ll still be doing the same thing—doing nothing but thinking about fear—a year from now. Thinking about fear, and regretting every moment you’ve lost because of it. But if you just get on with it and write—and learn, don’t forget that, there’s a lot of earning to be done here—a year from now you’ll have more experience, more knowledge, and perhaps even a first book published.

And the same amount or more of fear.
Yes, you read right. The same or more. You will be afraid of failure when you publish your first book. If it gains favorable reviews, you will be afraid that your second one won’t be as good. If it isn’t, you will work harder, knowing the whole time that this one must be better and fearing that it still won’t despite your best efforts. And if it will be good, you will approach your third one with the same fear. And that’s the way it will continue for a while. Unless, of course, you encounter some kind of a delay in the publication of a later book, for whatever reason, and then the fear will increase simply because you will feel that you’ve lost what little footing you’ve gained until then, and that fear might even erupt to the level it was in your early days as a writer. Now that’s, of course, not an entirely rational fear. But then, many of our fears aren’t. The point is, you’re not going to be less afraid anytime soon. But you are going to gain some experience and confidence, and these will gradually come to stand beside your fear, balancing it, allowing you to go on more surefootedly.

Don’t let fear win. Rather than imagining how wrong things can go, focus on your work and do what you need to do. We are always afraid of what could go wrong, but ultimately either nothing does, and we’ve worried for nothing, or it does, and then we get through whatever it is, and move on. So don’t waste your imagination on what might or might not be bad, and instead work day by day on creating the good. You might never stop being afraid, but the confidence that comes out of doing, and doing well, will balance that.
The tip for this week goes straight to the top of this post: You’re afraid. So what? Everybody is. So stop reading posts about fear and get to work.